France to Italy
L200 Barbarian vs the Alps – and rugby’s brutal Italian ancestor
THIRTY BURLY men stand in confrontation, fists raised, eyes locked on their opposing forward. Then the chaos of battle begins. Swaying, grappling, punching: one player's forehead splits wide open blood mixes with sweat, and then sand excoriates the open gash as the wounded player is pummelled into the dust, his legs arcing upwards clothed in what appear to be lady undergarments from Pride and Prejudice. Welcome to Italy and tje Calcio Storico. This contest was dreamt up by aristocrats in Florence during the 16th century, and while the name translates as ‘historic football’, it looks more like a brutal hybrid of mixed martial arts and rugby. That’s why we’re here, the first of three road trips between the six nations that do battle in Europe’s powerhouse rugby union tournament. Mitsubishi is a partner of England Rugby and its Scottish equivalent, and we’re doing the 1800-mile trip from France to Italy in an L200 pick-up. It’s a suitably rugged companion to cross the Alps on unpaved roads, before attending a game that sees grown men beat each other up The Mitsubishi’s in utility what appear vehicle success, to segment be with Camelot a has heritage been costumes. dating pivotal back to four decades, during which time well over four million have been manufactured. This fifth-generation L200 is new from the ground-up, and continues to be the only pick-up with a switchable four-wheel-drive system; it’s also got a low-range transfer ’box, the option to lock the centre diff, 205mm of ground clearance, and a huge loadbed to cart about chainsaws, tow ropes and other stuff for bounding out into the
wilderness. If the only dirt you get under your fingernails comes from some light rose-tending, the L200 is still pretty handy on the road, with Mitsubishi targeting the refinement and dynamism of an SUV with the hardiness that’s central to its award-winning pick-up’s appeal. Our test car is the latest L200 from Mitsubishi Special Vehicle Projects, a high-spec limited-edition called the Barbarian SVP II which costs around £30,000 before VAT. On top of the standard spec, you get some eye-catching orange detailing on the grille, head and tail lights and door handle recesses, shark-fin side steps, beefed-up wheelarch extensions, satin-black rear roll bars and unique orange-and-black 17-inch alloy wheels wrapped in BF Goodrich All-Terrain tyres. For a kid who grew up SVP coveting II definitely the Fall strikes Guy truck, a chord. the Barbarian Four of us rendezvous near Calais early on Thursday, loading all our camera and video gear and five days’ luggage in the generous, lined flatbed. The SVP II also gets a Mountain Rolltop retractable, lockable cover to keep all our kit hidden from prying eyes. You can get single-cab L200s, but the SVP II comes as a top-spec double-cab, giving acres of room for passengers to keep comfortable and have a snooze between stints at the wheel. All models get a 2.4-litre turbodiesel good for 179bhp and 40mpg. As we head south on the autoroute, the L200 pulls keenly through the six manual gears, settles to a high cruising speed at low revs, and suffers only modest wind noise. Perhaps most unexpected is how little road noise seeps northern We up fast-forward from France, the skirting chunky over the off-road around flat planes Reims, rubber. of Dijon and Lyon on our way south. We’ve got sat-nav, comfortable leather seats, dual-zone climate-control, Bluetooth and a USB charge point, plus hundreds of miles between fills – everything we need, in other words, for a stress-free run across an entire country. Around 6pm that evening, over 500 miles after we first set off, we find ourselves in Albertville, nestled on the south-eastern fringes of the Massif des Bauges national park, leaving just a 60-mile dash to the border the next day. We don’t need a wake-up call: with temperatures soaring to 35degC and no air-conditioning in our hotel, we’re raring to pay-up and get in the L200’s chilled cabin by 7am the next morning. The scenery is BIG down here, with huge mountains filling the windscreen, vast rocky riverbeds and super-sized civil engineering unfurling ahead of us to teleport us over the border. We pause at the ski town of Oulx, leaving on a road that spirals aggressively4
The L200 is a suitably rugged companion to cross the Alps, before seeing grown men beat each other up
upwards, the ski lifts. tree line, It’s gradually not past long the narrowing before chalets the and sealed as up it threads towards surface into the vanishes altogether. The fine covering of sand swirls up behind us in a cloudy trail, deep wheel tracks run like railway lines, and abrupt hairpins twist into steep inclines, forcing a shift down to first gear – the manual is no sweat, but the optional paddleshift auto would certainly reduce the workload. There’s no need to switch into four-wheel drive just yet – the chunky BF Goodrich tyres and generous ground clearance are all we need. And, to be fair, the only oncoming car we see in the first mile seems to be a supermarket delivery truck. Quickly the road becomes more challenging, though, with deep, muddy ruts filled with water under the shade of evergreen trees. I don’t want to risk giving it a go in rear-wheel drive, so I come to a stop, twist the rotary dial near the gearstick over to four-wheel drive, then push it down and twist it right again to lock the centre differential. You wouldn’t do it on the road because the front and rear wheels can’t turn at different speeds to account for corners, but on a very low-speed slippery surface, having all the wheels turn at exactly the same speed claws more traction. And if it gets tougher still, a further twist to the right will engage the low-range transfer case for lower gearing, so you can crawl across particularly tough ground. You can feel the tyres squidge and suck out as much traction as possible as we rock through the ruts, and it’s here that the L200 really comes into its own, stoically powering over the toughest terrain without pause or complaint. Up and up we climb, the road dropping away dramatically to one side, the terrain too bumpy to be tackled at anything quicker than walking pace. Thankfully we meet only mountain bikes and motorbikes up here, and eventually we reach the summit and a breathtaking panorama, staring out over to a part of France that was once Italy, standing right where occupying Nazi forces battled the resistance in 1944, ending in a brutal defeat at the hands of the Germans. We trace a different route down the southern side of the mountain range, the serpentine4
You can feel the tyres squidge and suck out as much traction as possible as we rock through the ruts
Defeated blue supporters prowl the streets, muscles bulging and chests puffed
coil twists sunburned falling stay morning As of in we road until Cesana from head with unfurling from we our along five Torinese, again starchy a day’s hours the reach in shooting, coast, hair. progressively and to a Florence. sealed strike That down fine night out surface, from gentler dust the we Turin next still towards drops, the scenery a fine Genoa looks spray on gloriously of the rain E80, begins the Mediterranean, temperature to fall, and with colourful lush, houses towering just mountainsides visible in the hanging dotted with mist above us. Finally we ease into Florence, picking up our guide Riccardo Cacace, who magics tickets and secures the choicest viewing spots. Many of the roads are already closed in preparation for the game, so we park up, grab our kit and lug it halfway across the city, through bustling crowds in temperatures that are now back into the 30s. We think we’ve got it tough, then we watch the pre-match parade strutting through Piazza Della Signoria. There are people dressed in full renaissance costume, some tossing huge flagpoles 10 or so feet in the air (and, more impressively, catching them), some wearing armour when, really, the police already seem to have everything under control. But there is an undercurrent of tension. Four teams (the whites, blues, greens and reds) take part in the Calcio Storico, each one representing a different quarter of Florence. Played a couple of weeks previously, the semi-finals have already seen their fair share of incident: Riccardo tells us a blue player kicked a referee and the whites progressed to play the reds in the finals via an appeals process, despite the blues leading when the game was abandoned. Today, the defeated blues prowl the streets, all bulging muscles, sprawling tattoos and puffed chests; they chant that the whites need to win on the pitch, not off it, and right now it seems the most important thing in the world. The procession leads down the network of cool, shady back streets, before filing into the bright sunlight of Piazza Santa Croce, where Calcio Storico has been played since the 16th century. Grandstands frame a stone4
We drive the L200 into the Calcio Storico arena, a fitting finale for a pick-up that’s taken every punch and kick
surface half each padded net, that – you’d players if Arsene taking with belongs end. see periodically. specially lower him a Players goalmouth Wenger care to pop section, the to covered need out miss captain were of but stretching to the here managing in chuck below and tent sand and standard in the the and admonish the the ball a top width divided team, middle; over of bearer the of the the in Maria ends, impartial The the Novella) white grandstands crowd. (Santo fans It’s Spirito) are an either incredible separated and side red a setting, at more (Santa opposing especially Croce and resting – the as main place the huge of Franciscan Michelangelo doors of church Basilica – seem in di Florence, Santa to be rising consumed sea, your by mind the incoming struggling red to shirts compute like the a juxtaposition. flares and an edgy There undercurrent are chants and that’s colourful part wrestling showmanship, part out-of-control testosterone; some players seem genuinely keen to meet opposition fans for a quick catch-up after. The white fans are noisier, but we decide we’d least like to be beaten up by the red players; they look far harder, and we decide they’ll win. round. includes isn’t The even game Each in play. team provides goalkeepers, Instead, consists a lot the to of but get 27 15 at players forwards your first head the and ball fight three in to the pairs floor, until at one which manages point he to must pin the submit other to humiliation while the victor swigs a drink or waves at friends. From what I can glean, it seems the ball comes into play once every battle has a victor, and is thrown between players much as you’d expect in rugby. There’s no sign of an offside rule like in football, rugby, Some Each players while time no forbidding tripping there’s do get a red score, and of cards the punching a forward-pass cannon though. are fires, allowed. the like teams 50 long switch minutes: ends, fight, and sit the on process someone, repeats throw for ball, score, cannon, switch. The players never seem to tire, they just get bloodier, their sweaty bodies coated in sand like greasy drumsticks rolled in breadcrumbs. The whites just keep ahead throughout, and while a half-point is awarded to the reds when a white attempt misses its target, they never quite claw back the deficit. It finishes 6 to the whites, 5.5 to the reds. The crowd erupts, the whites bound up to the fences that separate them from their fans like famished tigers with a whiff of flesh, fists clenched, flags waving, blood still dripping. It certainly makes for a more dramatic photo opportunity than pulling your shirt over your head. That night fireworks explode above the Arno River from Piazzale Michelangelo, colourfully lighting up the crowds in spectacularly relentless volleys. The next morning, we’re granted special permission to drive the Mitsubishi L200 into the Calcio Storico arena, before the hard-partying city wakes, Piazza Santa Croce now eerily quiet after the previous day’s intensity. Looking even harder coated in dirt, it’s a fitting closing shot for a pick-up that’s taken every kick and punch we could throw at it. Now all that remains is the small matter of 900 or so miles back to Calais.